


to live is to die

by westernapparel



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 13:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18250604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westernapparel/pseuds/westernapparel
Summary: The seven had traveled a week into the past, so Ben remained dead. Klaus's powers allowed him to talk to his siblings, though, and he did. He told them things they didn't want to hear by their dead brother, but it ultimately (he hoped) helped them.(The problem is, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to talk to Five.)





	to live is to die

Ben remembered how it was to live.

Too bad he couldn’t.

He knew he’d never experience it again, flickering into existence at the moment Five jumped into the present with everyone else from the future, when they all stood there, looking at each other uncertainty. Vanya looked on with fear for both herself and for fear of what she could do. Five glared almost suspiciously at everyone before collapsing along with Vanya. Klaus was better off than Allison, Luther, and Diego, but still stumbled to the ground with a parched throat (he assumed by the coughing) and glared at Ben.

“Fuck you, ghostly nonchalance,” Klaus muttered. Ben leaned against a tree and snickered.

Luther, with his hoarse voice, wheezed “Pills. Now,” while pointing at Vanya.

Allison draped her body over him to drag him down from advancing on Vanya. “No,” she said, a bit too loud. She seemed to be exploring her voice once again, feeling the smooth skin that wasn’t there when Vanya sliced her throat. “This is why we got into this mess into the first place. Because her fucking pills restricted her powers and she could never control them.”

“Which is why we should give them to her,” Luther responded, half-heartedly arguing.

“She would stop taking them,” Diego piped up. “Obviously.”

“And not to mention,” Ben poked his hand through Klaus’s head, causing him to break off as he waved the hand away, “are we really trying to become dear old dad?”

Luther stormed off into the house, talking his “Number One” bullshit with Vanya over his shoulder. Allison and Diego followed suit, while Klaus stayed to drag Five into the house.

Ben stayed in the courtyard. The sky quickly darkened and a torrential downpour started. Vanya must’ve awoken, realizing the catastrophic consequences of her decisions, or deciding to follow the same route. Luther would certainly go down with glee.

The rain fell on Ben’s bronze statue in such a way it looked as if it were crying.

He certainly wished it was gone once more.

 

…

 

“Ben, dear brother, I fucking hate you.”

“Love you too.”

“Are you talking to Ben?” 

Klaus had succeeded in taking Five to his room, but not without curses and grunts. Ben and Klaus had been raiding the room, discussing the nuances of Five’s personality. (When he was sad, his frown was tilted down a fraction of a degree. When he was happy, he wouldn’t make condescending comments.)

But when Five had woken and Klaus mentioned his name, he looked almost disheveled. His eyes were wide, his mouth slightly ajar. Ben liked to think that kind of expression was Five’s equivalent of screaming in horror and disbelief. Klaus sent a look his way, and Ben merely raised an eyebrow.

“No?” Klaus tried, grimacing. He wasn’t really trying to like. Ben could see it in his expression, shrinking into himself with a smug smirk that made him look more constipated than anything. He spun around in his chair and rolled right through Ben, almost shivering at the contact.

“He’s here?” Five parroted, still stuck staring at Klaus, and the years of indifference Ben practiced almost fell apart, crumbling like a saltine when under pressure.

“He’s here, but I’m not sure-”

“Summon him.”

“I’m sorry?”

Five teleported in front of Klaus, gripping a book he had picked up from his bedside at some point. Their faces were as close as Five allowed them, narrowing his eyes as if Klaus were some puzzle he could figure out, and the reward was talking to Ben.

“I spent all my time in the Apocalypse looking for Ben, and you’re telling me he’s right in this room?” Five barked a short, bitter laugh. “Summon him.”

Klaus responded with his hands turning blue. Ben waved at Five, who eyed him distrustfully. Right when he was about to say something, Ben drifted back to ghosthood, and Five glared at Klaus, who could merely shrug. 

“Tap’s drained, come back tomorrow.”

 

…

 

Five did come back the next day.

Ben refused to talk to him.

He was afraid of what Five would say to him once he manifested, and was afraid that it would hurt Five more than it helped him. Klaus understood, due to the fact that each sibling had come up to him on multiple occasions and asked to see Ben, in which they each sobbed the moment they saw Ben, and afterward, separately, on their own time.

Ben knew not to expect that of Five. He was persistent, but when the case was out of his hands (being Ben), he had absolutely no say in what was to happen because he wasn’t dead.

Klaus had never been his savior, but in that moment, where he drowned everything out with white noise and loud music and sometimes podcasts, Ben truly thought that they were siblings, in the simple word. They danced and sung and talked and yelled and did everything normal siblings did.

Ben knew he was the only one that grew up relatively normal. (Discounting his death. They were just trying to help, and he wasn’t very optimistic at the time.) Five claimed that he wasn’t an emotionally stunted man-child, but he was. Literally, he was an old man in the body of a child that threatened Klaus with Fahrenheit 451 because he wanted to see his dead brother (Ben didn’t understand why) and he couldn’t ask like a normal person. All of his siblings weren’t normal. Especially Vanya.

When Ben had seen Vanya, she looked down to the ground and pressed her lips together in a thin line, reminiscent of a smile. She talked of the White Violin, who noticed Ben and continued to play for him, hoping he would stay if he heard the music, a sweet melody even she could appreciate. She talked of the surge of power she felt, almost choking her as it flowed from her body in desperate, crashing waves, creating a clear path at the expense of her own body. Vanya compared it to the tidal waves of the tentacles, prowling and wreaking havoc. She ended up leaving in a heaving, sobbing mess, as she did with almost anything.

Ben noticed it helped Vanya to separate herself from the White Violin.

He had left contact with Luther; a punch to the face. Ben told him he had it coming, and faded from existence. Klaus laughed and tried to high five Ben.

By the time Allison came around, Klaus had enough control for the two to gossip their way towards hell and back, agreeing her and Luther's relationship was creepy enough and it had taken her years to realize that, especially as Ben reminded her of the time she rumored him. She, as well, left the room in a mess. Klaus winced and hung on Ben’s shoulder until it passed through him.

Diego talked of his vigilante escapades, and Ben pinned it down, plain and simple for him: he was living out Reginald’s dreams but as a solo act. Diego spent most of their time reuniting defending his stance, even citing the very untrue fact that he had done it for his “lady love,” of which even he winced. Ben shook his head sadly and laid an ice cold hand on Diego’s shoulder, promptly disappearing.

 

…

 

When it came time for Five to bother Klaus at the same time each morning (three a.m, in the kitchen where Klaus ate whipped cream) Klaus barely gave a glance to Ben before shrugging. He was, as well, eating whipped cream. The fact that Five didn’t notice him told Ben that the man-child wasn’t sleeping as much as he should’ve.

“I thought you were alive,” Five said. What a sentence starter. “Until I read Vanya’s book. Is it true you—”

“Yes.” 

“Why?”

“The tentacles thought they were helping.”

“Were they?”

“Short-term, yes. Long-term? I’m still deciding.”

Five recoiled as if he were shot. Klaus tapped a finger on the table, a steady rhythm that said he knew, but didn’t want it to be said.

“I’ve never known you to be that blunt.” Five quickly regained his composure, narrowing eyes at Ben as he did the first time around.

Ben shrugged. “Death does things.”

“Certainly does.”

Ben’s eyes wandered over the silent ghosts following Five, his marks that had learned who really killed them. The most faded all had the same gunshot wounds, while others he recognized. Klaus also eyed them, and with a flick of a hand, they all disappeared. Five turned and frowned at the empty space behind him, obviously uneasy not knowing everything.

“Was the future any good?”

“If you wanted to suffer, sure.”

Ben knew what to say to Five. He unraveled Five in the way Five wanted to do to Ben, but he wasn’t sure if it’d do more harm than good. He’d, best circumstance, descend into alcoholism and cut off any and every sibling, and the miracle would be indifference. Unfathomable is him accepting it and working to fix it. 

Ben was blunt with his other siblings. They were attempting to become better people and would accept his blatant (destructive) criticism as constructive. However, Five wasn’t into the whole “improving themself” thing and had no plans in an apocalypse-averted world other than to drink it all away.

Ben saw the desperation in Five’s eyes when he realized The Séance had his title for a reason, and he knew Five had so many things to tell him. He saw the compiled booklist, Vanya’s at the top and Fahrenheit 451 second. (Too bad he had read it multiple times already.) He didn’t know what happened in the future, but he saw the books Five scribbled in, the work of a child sent to the future with a scattered brain. He saw the probability maps all revolving around Ben himself.

“Don’t leave.”

Five raised an eyebrow. “You would expect that of me?” 

“If you save me, _if_ you travel, you’ll be creating a new timeline. You’ve already abandoned two, the apocalypse and the day you came with ‘Protect Harold Jenkins.’ Stop leaving us.”

“Timelines?”

Ben snorted. “You of all people should know time isn’t linear. Learn the ethical and moral complications of time travel. I’m telling you here: don’t travel back.”

Ben faded and Klaus’s eyes flitted between the three present. Five cursed and teleported. Ben couldn’t have addressed the entire issue, but he could hack at it, bit by bit.

**Author's Note:**

> took me forever to write and i didnt beta it so whoops?


End file.
